Conventional a.c. plasma discharge display panels consist of two glass plates upon each of which has been formed an array of parallel conductors over which transparent glass dielectric and secondary emissive coatings have been applied. The plates are assembled with the conductor arrays disposed substantially orthogonal to each other, the inner plate surfaces spaced at a uniform distance designated the discharge gap over the entire surface and perimeter sealed into an envelope which is then evacuated, backfilled with the appropriate gas mixture and permanently sealed. By selective manipulation of the conductor arrays, cells positioned at the intersections are ionized to form a display.
While the manufacturing techniques for fabricating a.c. plasma panels have been developed, they remain relatively expensive to fabricate because of required close tolerances in physical and electrical parameters. Such a.c. plasma panels possess an inherent storage or memory function in which discharge particles, ions and electrons, are alternately attracted to opposite walls of the cells as the polarity of the driving voltage is successively reversed. However, the inherent memory requires that sustain signals be continuously applied to all cells of the panel to repetitively reionize the cells to maintain the display, resulting in relatively complex logic requirements to combine selective write and erase operations with the non-selective sustain. In addition, relatively high voltage write and erase drivers which are not susceptible to economical low voltage monolithic circuit fabrication are required in conventional plasma discharge display devices. Precise write, erase and sustain times are required in normal a.c. plasma operation. Further, certain electrical parameters such as the operating margin, i.e., the difference between the maximum and minimum sustain voltage (V.sub.s max.-V.sub.s min.) are extremely critical, and may vary beyond limits either during or after test, necessitating either rejection or field replacement of the panel with the associated cost involved.